You two make a compelling argument for the game. What's the difference between the free rules pdf and the rules book (besides not having to print everything yourself to have a hardcopy version)?

@Francis; do you have some pictures of your pike army?

Rod

I'll see if I can get some taken. As of now, I have only painted up 40 Warlord games macedonian pikemen so far, but have another 40 on the way. The rest of the army is a mix of caesarian romans, and medieval troops, from Perry, Warlord, and Fireforge games.

I love the freedom that KoW gives me.

I just realised that I can't put the photos directly in my post and have to upload them to another site first. That is to much hassle as I have never done anything like that before, sorry @Rod.

At any rate you guys are not missing much as I am a mediocre painter at best, and paint more to make them playable, than to make them look great.

What I can do is direct you towards the models I am using.

My foot guard are the Caesarian romans from warlord games.

My pikes are the Warlord macedonians.

I also use one regiment of praetorians from Victrix as a foot guard unit with a magic item upgrade (blessing of the gods, giving "Elite"). Note that I paint my ancient models in more medieval colours than ancient (steel rather than bronze).

For my great weapon foot guard, I use lightly converted Scandinavian infantry from Fireforge Games, these are a sort of Varangian guard in my list.

I also use the Fireforge games Teutonic Knights as heavy knights. As you get 12 knights rather than 10 in a box, I converted up 3 pegasus riders using Dark Eldar Scourge wings, and used one of my knights as a dragon rider, using the Mantic dragon. As the KoM don't havy anything to represent these I use a dragon and a Drakon rider regiment from the elf list to represent them on the table (just under the 25% allies limit in a 2000p list).

Perry WoTR light cav with crossbows are my scouts with carabines.

Perry 100 years war longbowmen are my bowmen.

I use a Warlord games roman scorpion as a ballista, and two Bronzino's Galloper Guns (old DoW) also as Ballistas.

And finally I use Perry WoTR european mercenaries as Pole Arms Bloks, Crossbows, and Arquebusiers.

my characters are a bunch of converted models, from all of these different sets (they all go great with each other both regarding size, but also, surprisingly, style).

The end result is a very distinct fantasy human army, based on different periods of time. I have found that the ancient models fit in reasonably well with models up until around 1450. Later than that and the clothes and armour become too modern.

KoW gives me an opportunity to choose and build the sort of army that I want to play. I never got the same freedom from Warhammer (or any GW game for that matter), and I think this (as well as the balance of the game, and ease of play) might be it's strongest selling point.

As of now, KoM might be among the weaker armies in the game, but I never feel the sort of frustration and hopelessness that I felt when I tried to use an Empire infantry army with minimum character and artillery support in warhammer. Warhammer was in large parts about super humans, monsters, and heroes, in KoW the little guys gets to shine again.

This is my current list. It will change as I get more stuff painted up.

I think you mentioned one of the very important aspect that makes KoW so appealing. You don't have to be a great painter and/or modeller but the opportunity to collect the army with any miniatures you want and still be able to play with it no matter if it is a casual game or a tournament is a huge advantage. Even the simplest unit base makes it look so good and people have already shown how creative that process can be.

In addition, it seems that one can also go with any combination of units and have a good chance for winning. I like your army a lot, it seems it can actually be used for KoW Historical too!